A FATAL FIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 4006, 23 December 1930, Page 22

A FATAL FIRE.

INQUEST ON VICTIMS. GRAPHIC ACCOUNT BY WITNESSES. - WELLINGTON, December 18. Graphic accounts of the fatal fire which occurred at Oriental Bay on December 4 were given by the principal witnesses at the inquest into the deaths of Mrs Ellen Watson and Walter Gray before the coroner (Mr J. S. Barton, S.M.). Henrietta Needham, a millinery buyer, said she resided on premises which were owned and occupied by Mrs Watson. She retired to bed at about 10.45 o’clock after entertaining a bridge party in her bed-sitting room. Neither she nor the visitors had been smoking during the evening. Witness had a coal and wood fire in her grate, but it was practically out when she retired. She went to sleep as soon as she went to bed. The next she knew was when she woke up half suffocated with smoke. She immediately ran upstairs to Gray, and w-oke him. She called out to Mrs Watson. She had some difficulty in waking Gray, but when she left hi§,room he was awake. She did not try Mrs Watson’s door. It was always ajar, but she thought calling out “ fire ” would wake her. Then she ran downstairs and got a dish of water. . She could not remember what happened then, but the whole place seemed to burst into flames. So far as she could remember there was no fire upstairs when she arrived there first. When the fire broke out in earnest she shouted to all in the house to warn them. Then she thought she heard Mrs Watson walk along the top of the passage, and thought she was making for the back stairs. Everything was then enveloped in a dense smoke. Witness had to make her way to the backyard, and there she discovered Miss Thompson, but there was no sign of Mrs Watson. They both tried to go up the back stairs but the smoke prevented them. They then saw Gray in the act of jumping, and called out to him not to. He was at the bathroom window. However, he jumped out, and they ran forward to intercept him to break his fall, but he struck a coal box and then the concrete. Just after Gray jumped Mrs Watson-appeared at the bathroom windown in her night attire. She stood at the window and gasped, apparently for help. They tried to reach her with a ladder, but it would not reach the window. She then disappeared. The brigade arrived on the scene just after this. Witness was of the opinion that the fire started in her wardrobe, which was near the fireplace. Elsie Mary Thompson gave similar evidence.

Thomas Burton Clark, deputy-superin-tendent of the Fire Brigade, stated that the building was well alight when the brigade arrived. He was told there was a woman in a front room on the first floor, but when he made a search as soon as possible he could find no trace of her. As the fire was being subdued he made a further search, and found the body of Mrs Watson beneath the window. The coroner returned a verdict that Mrs Ellen Watson's death took place as the result of asphyxiation and scalding, and that Gray died in hospital from chest injuries received while jumping from the top storey af the house.